A_KNACKFUSS

The inspirational backbone of this collection finds its roots in the action lead by Sadako Sasaki between the months of August and October 1955. The story tells of a 7 year old girl who consistently hand built over 1000 paper cranes, bringing an ancient Japanese belief to her own personal fate. Sasaki's story has leaked into Alice Knackfuss's work on traditional European masculine wardrobes. The spirit of the collection explores delicacy within a tough body, that an emotional defence can trigger strong, universal positions. Within the cloth, samurais behave like geishas, their armours, stripped to a mere image where protection is obsolete, reveal naked patterns and layers. Umbrella folds caught in a crane's dance, the color of rain behind Asian suns. The choosen material mirror these images, ranging from rough handcrafted paper fabric, to warm noble flannel, to soft draping silk. Alice Knackfuss' work consistently engages in a reformulation of masculine costumes, holding a belief in it's eternal motion and in the scenarios that serve as triggers to it's changes. In this collection she has worked with these stories in order to restore the binding relationship we create with pieces of material, forging clothes and wearing them as memories.